A FATAL ATTRACTION TO PLATH: SYLVIA PLATHS INFLUENCE ON THE GOTH SUBCULTURE

1
A FATAL ATTRACTION TO PLATHSYLVIA PLATHS
INFLUENCE ON THE GOTH SUBCULTURE

• Michael Frizell
• GEP 397
• Based on a paper presented at the 7th Annual
  Graduate Interdisciplinary Research Forum, SMSU,
  Spring 2000

2
THE DARK MUSE 1932-1963Who was Sylvia Plath?
3
PLATH CONFESSIONAL POET

• Frustrated? Yes. Why? Because it is impossible
  for me to God - or the universal woman-and-man or
  anything much
• I wonder about all the roads not taken and I am
  moved to quote Frostbut I wont. It is sad to
  be able only to mouth other poets. I want someone
  to mouth me.

• I hated men because they didnt stay around and
  love me like a father I could prick holes in
  them and show they were no father-material. I
  made them propose and then showed them they
  hadnt a chance. I hated men because they didnt
  have to suffer like a woman did. They could die
  or go to Spain. They could have fun while another
  woman had birth pangsMen, nasty, lousy men

4
CONFESSIONAL POETRYPlaths Influences Subjects

• A contemporary of Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton
• Undoubtedly influenced by Ted Hughes in some ways
• Her father, a beekeeper
• Fame

• Death -- Her own and the death of others
• Her parents
• Greek mythology
• Womanism or the celebration/pains of being a
  woman
• The Holocaust
• Feelings of betrayal

5
GOTH AS SUBCULTURE

• Goths follow a lifestyle that is a mix of popular
  culture, Christian and neo-pagan beliefs, myth,
  and individual whim. They are sometimes
  mistakenly linked with deviant religious
  practices and Satanism. If they follow a religion
  at all, they are probably nominal or devout
  Christians, Atheists, Agnostics, New Agers, or
  Wiccans.
• Pictured Actress Fairuza Balk

6
GOTHISMA Definition of Goth by Goths

• There appears to be a Revival of Gothism in
  the past few years. Hmmseems good on the
  surface, but is it? Once we prided ourselves on
  being different, sometimes for shock value,
  sometimes for other morbid reasons. Now is
  appears that Gothism is trendyOver the years,
  the Goths I have associated with were gentle
  creatures clinging to the romantic side of life
  tragic romance.
• Pictured Batty

7
GOTHISMA Definition of Goth by Goths

• Imperious, choleric, irascible, extreme in
  everything, with a dissolute imagination the like
  of which has never been seen. Atheistic to the
  point of fanaticism, there you have me in a
  nutshell, and kill me again or take me as I am,
  for I shall not change.
• How a Goth described herself, from The
  Marquis de Sades Last Will and Testament.

8
FAERIE FREAKAn E-Mail Correspondence

• (Goth) tends to display itself in the classic
  Goth literaturemost dramatically in vampire
  literature, mainly Dracula. The thought of
  eternal life seems to have related itself to
  eternal lovewhen mortality is undermined one
  tends to look for something more, spirituality
  and specifically love.

• To me Goth is a sense of morbid fascination. I
  feel drawn to (the) macabre beauty and the
  romanticism that lingers in the Goth theme. For
  me, (although I do dress a bit strangely, too) it
  doesnt have much to do with the clothes and
  make-up, its all a state of mind. Its hard to
  describe but I hope I did well enough.

9
GOTH INFLUENCES

• A fascination with death, their own and the death
  of others
• A turn to spirituality for answers about
  mortality
• A fascination with the notion of an afterlife
• Finding beauty in darkness an adoration for the
  darker side of life
• Hammer films, Anne Rice, Poppy Z. Brite, Poe,
  etc.
• The Crow, Music

10
Ted Hughes definition of confessional poetry
11
THE DARK MUSE SPEAKSAn E-Mail Conversation with
Faerie Freak

• I think she (Plath) holds a huge connection with
  teenagers, theirs is a time of change (puberty)
  and they worry about their minds, whether they
  are normal, etc. Plath allows people to see that
  abnormality is only an illusion, and that there
  is another way of seeing things, kinda like a
  third eye thing.

• I found I wasnt alone. Her fascination with
  morbidity seemed to hold a strong connection for
  me. I read (The Bell Jar) and they way she felt
  and thought, okay, so Im not the only weirdo on
  this planet. Also, the success of the character
  to survive was hopeful, even though I was
  shattered when I learned how she died.

12
THE POETRY OFFAERIE FREAK

• The Macabre
• by Sally Rushbrook
• A sick, fermented object Heart shaped
  Umbilical chords stretching like telephone lines
  Tar black Dark and frightening She smiles,
  and, as i watch, she mocks my naivety. She's my
  angel, with morals, wearing a stained White robe.
  

• The air is humid with the presence of rotting
  Body fumes and the stench Of stale perfume,
  partially masked by the sickly Smoky smell of
  incense. A church of absolute indiscretion
  Church of nihilism The demagogue always wanted
  to be a demi-god, but Hitler chose only the
  Length of his moustache and speeches. Can you
  entirely erase your birth?

13
THE POETRY OFFAERIE FREAK

• As I held on to my Sisters' ankle, I was pushed
  into this world,The uninvited,Unnoticed,Sometim
  es ignored,Always ridiculed,My only form of
  escape a rough,Cold blade,The best day of my
  life, The day I learnt to hurt inside,I always
  avoid looking into your eyes,But still, I'll
  dream I could be,As I slip into
  unconsciousness,And feel the pain slip
  away,Expressionless,Motionless,Emotionless,And
  always turning away.

14
THE POETRY OFSYLVIA PLATH

• An Excerpt from Medusa
• Did I escape, I wonder?
• My mind winds to you
• Old barnacled umbilicus, Atlantic cable,
• Keeping itself, it seems, in a state of
  miraculous repair.
• In any case, you are always there,
• Tremulous breath at the end of my line,
• Curve of water upleaping
• To my water rod, dazzling and grateful
• Touching and sucking.

• I didnt call you.
• I didnt call you at all.
• Nevertheless, nevertheless
• You steamed to me over the sea,
• Fat and red, a placenta
• Who do you think you are?
• A Communion wafer?Blueberry Mary?
• I shall take no bite of your body,
• Bottle in which I live.
• Ghatly Vatican.
• I am sick to death of hot salt.
• Green as eunuchs, your wishes
• Hiss at my sins.

15
THE POETRY OF SYLVIA PLATHExcerpt from A Mad
Girls Love Song

• I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead,
• I lift my lids and all is born again.
• (I think I made you up in my head.)
• The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
• And arbitrary blackness gallops in
• I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
• I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
• And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
• (I think I made you up inside my head).
• God topples from the sky, hells fires fade
• Exit seraphim and Satans men
• I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
• I fancied youd return the way you said,
• But I grow old an I forgot your name.
• (I think I made you up inside my head.)

16
A RADICAL DISCONNECT

• Mary Kinzie writes
• what struck me as most characteristic of her
  work were the passages in which the mechanism
  that might ordinarily censor the material has
  been radically disconnected. In its absence,
  nightmare, wish fulfillment, and self-destructive
  urgency--all the agents of toxic untruth--coil
  and tumble onto the pageThe writer of these
  lines clearly wants to shock us, perhaps as a way
  to reproduce in herself the sensation of atrocity
  that accompanied her illness.

17
CUT by Plath

• What a thrill -
• My thumb instead of an onion.
• The top quite gone
• Except for a sort of hinge
• Of skin
• A flap like a hat,
• Dead white,
• Then that red plush.

• The disconnection in her work clearly contains
  self-destructive imagery. Plath goes on in the
  poem to compare her thumb to a scalped little
  pilgrim, her blood to redcoats running from
  battle, and even compares the gauze she wraps her
  thumb in to a member of the Ku Kux Klan whose
  babushka is stained with blood. Her
  disconnection to the here and now is painful to
  read.

18
BREAKDOWN by Heidi

• The light diminishes,
• suffocating fingers of darkness
• grasping, seizing,
• holding me under
• as the oceans seeps
• into my waterlogged lungs
• NO AIR
• bricks are being laid
• walls of cement entrapping
• my thoughts only fire escape,
• the sweet smell
• of mortar, intoxicatingly
• suffocating
• CANT BREATHE

• too tired of swimming,
• need to rest,
• a moments peace, please,
• no strength left
• to break the bricks
• Let me sleep
• the darkness is inviting,
• the oceans voice soothing,
• and the wall has been erected.
• Of note is that she shows no concern for her
  evident death, except for two moments of panic.
  However, those are mere physical concerns that
  are strong, but ignored as she descends into
  darkness.

19
To look at her photo is deceiving. This
all-American girl/wife/mother image contained a
dwindling spirit and a darkness that eventually
led Plath to suicide.
20
From Plaths Personal Journal

• There comes a time when all your outlets are
  blocked, as with waxAn outlet you need, and they
  are sealed. You made it for yourself. And so on
  this day, you feel you will burst, break, if you
  can not let the great reservoir seething in you
  loose, surging through some leak in the dike. So
  you go downstairs and sit at the piano. All the
  children are out, the house is quiet. A sounding
  of sharp chords on the keyboard, and you begin to
  feel the relief of losing some of the great
  weight on your shoulders.